I have read just about every journal on the board and thought that I would start my own. I have to get myself back on track and I hope this will keep myself motivated. A little about myself: I am female, 40 years old, 5'8 and currently 142 pounds, I have a rare immune deficiency that is getting worse as I am getting older. The past year I have had to let my exercise routine go completely which has been exceptional difficult for me. - That along with a 20 pound weight gain I feel not just sick most of the time but also slightly upset - feeling that my body have let me down. So, why am I posting here? I deeply respect every single persons journal that I have read and all of the individuals/moderators that take their time to comment on these journals. I know I have to work on my diet - badly and slowly get some exercise back in my day. Just last year I was lifting, swinging kettle bells and rowing most days to barely be able to walk because of pain, infections and exhaustion. My goal is to walk as much as I can, do single exercises when I can (like 10 squats at a time throughout the day), I also will swing the kettlebell 10 reps at a time when I have extra energy. The diet will probably be the biggest challenge.... I eat pretty low fat, very high carb and low protein. I have a very hard time digesting protein and get very inflamed if I go over much more than 60 grams a day.

So as for today:

workout: walked about 1 mile and did 40 squats (4x10) - I also walked my silly stubborn dog a few times

Today I felt less pain than normal (I am on antibiotics so that often helps) so I decided to swing the kettlebell 12 kg for a total of 300 swings throughout the day. My normal "long" swing weight was 16 kg but I am trying not to focus on that - it is hard. I also walked with my husband and one of our super dogs (the stubborn one). Diet wise I again did not do very well:

Every now and then, skip a meal, either breakfast or dinner (intermittent fasting), now this doesn't mean starving yourself, if you go hungry today, you make up for it in the next meal. The reason why i recommend this is because when we eat "little and often", our bodies do no get the chance to properly de-toxic, which puts us into an inflammatory state (grazing was not a part of human evolution). But with occasional random fasting, this allows the body to go into repair mode, it improves insulin sensitivity, reduces oxidative stress, reduces blood pressure, moreover, it'll give your body a chance to use fat instead of its preferred fuel source..glucose. (Which is also why i recommend counting out snacking). I've found IFing has had a very positive effect on my weight and overall well being, same can be said for many others.

I think the 3 meals a day is where I really need to get to. My snacking often turns into full blown meals and the choices are not always the best. I tried intermittent fasting a long time ago, I would skip breakfast but instead of focusing on eating just 2 meals I would just keep eating the remainder of the 8 hour window and that obviously did no good. I am wondering if I would be better of cutting out all of the wheat and replacing it with something else - not sure what? I was thinking potatoes but carb wise I think I would consume more since I can eat a lot of potatoes (as my post probably show I have a pretty healthy appetite). So in short - thank you Rob for your suggestion and starting tomorrow I am going to focus on 3 meals and think of what you wrote above about detoxing and inflammation if I get the urge to snack. Thanks again for commenting

I should have known that today would not be a good day to start a "new" way of eating but I thought I could handle it. Today I had a court hearing about trying to fight the very tiny amount of child support that I am receiving for my two teenage girls, since he somehow can claim disability (one of the reasons was actually heartburn - that almost made my day) the child support got lowered to almost nothing and when I say nothing I mean an adult would have a hard time buying 1 weeks of groceries for themselves so forget about trying to even start stretching this for 2 girls for a month. Oh well, I have so many important people in my life (including my husband that spend the entire day by my side in court) and awesome pets that money really is not that important. Ok - I promise rant over and back to what I started the journal for:

Exercise: I had so much pain today - I think stress but I was so upset when I got home that I did turkish getups over and over and over. It should be said because of the pain it would not be safe to hold a kettlebell so this was with no weight but keeping as good form as I could

MealsBreakfast: ate at 5 AM since we had to leave early - 1/2 cup cooked wild rice, french cut green beans and nutritional yeast. 2 small grapefruits, lots of coffee soy milkLunch: noneDinner: 2 slices homemade wheat bread with lettuce, tomatoes, red pepper, 1 carrot, fruit saladthen: oh well, I was doing so well and then a bowl of shredded mini wheats just "fell" in my hands and I just had to eat them

I did do some reading about intermittent fasting from Rob's comment yesterday and I was reading about the 5-2 diet, I think maybe I could do that, I might try. Obviously, I am not super awesome with sticking to a schedule..

Hi Pureheaven,The 5-2 diet is a very good and manageable fasting method, did you happen to watch the BBC documentary called "Eat, fast and live longer"?, if ya haven't, watch it, it's show's how and why Dr Mossley came up with the diet, really interesting, it was from watching this that i began fasting myself (something i thought i'd never do...love ma grub:)http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvdbtt ... shortfilms

Btw, best of luck getting everything else sorted, and get that guy a rennie:)

I decided to give the 5-2 plan a try and made today the first so called fast day. Technically it is not a real fast day since women are still allowed 500 for the day which for me is great and its like fasting with training wheels. Since I knew that I would be eating very little I did not do much exercise wise, just 100 squats throughout the day some ab work and a 30 min walk with the dogs.

Diet wise I am pretty proud of myself for sticking to it - it was not as hard as I thought and I made it under 500 calories for the day. Rob, I have never seen the documentary but I read about it a few times and after your mentioning about intermittent fasting I happen to read about it again - thanks for the link I am going to take a look at that later tonight. I am going to stick to this for awhile and my goal is to get in to a 3 or less meals a day routine and sure some weight loss would be great. As for the Rennie I had to actually look that up since I was not familiar but I guess it is equal to the Antacids over here and trust me after that hearing I needed a few alka seltzers myself.

Nice glad you started one, looks like a good start. You're going to hate me but there is vegan coconut chia macaroon ice cream now in the stores, I dont know what its called but it has a pic of a unicorn with a cone for a horn for a logo...